Fifteen degrees of chucking
Chucking has become a multi-headed monster that needs to be tackled strongly on several fronts. It needs to be looked at afresh in the light of recent cases.
NEW DELHI :
Shortly after the International Cricket Council’s (ICC’s) ban on Pakistan off-spinner Saeed Ajmal for chucking was announced on Tuesday, a wag mentioned, “Not only did he fool countless batsmen with his doosra, but also the authorities."
It’s a valid criticism considering that the Pakistan off-spinner has been playing without a hitch for several years. Why did this action take so long in coming? On some reflection though, I think this point of view looks at the problem fractionally, not holistically.
“Chucking" has been a vexing matter in cricket ever since the law against it came into existence in 1864, and increasingly so in the modern game. For instance, in 2009 too, Ajmal’s action was found to be out of the ordinary. He was cleared after tests in an Australian lab.
Now, biomechanic experts in Brisbane, Australia, have termed all his deliveries illegal. So what has happened in five years to make a bowler who has claimed around 450 international wickets be seen as a chucker?
There are four aspects, I believe, that need to be highlighted to understand why the matter is so complex.
1) Can the flaw be temporary?
Usually fresh, young bowlers show flawed actions. The bowlers who have never been called for chucking in a match but reworked their actions early in their careers include Brett Lee and Harbhajan Singh.
There are others like Pakistan pace bowler Shoaib Akhtar, who was sanctioned but cleared immediately in 1999, while Bangladesh spinner Abdur Razzak was banned in December 2008 but cleared in March 2009 after a few months in rehabilitation.
When the flaw is detected early, it is relatively easier for coaches and/or biomechanic experts to iron it out. In the case of a 36-year-old like Ajmal, it could be difficult.
It could also be that when Ajmal is tested later, he may be told which of his deliveries are legal. South Africa’s Johan Botha and West Indies’ Marlon Samuels were cleared of chucking but had to give up particular kinds of deliveries: Botha couldn’t bowl his doosra, while Samuels’ off-break was deemed illegal.
2) How clear is the law?
In contemporary cricket’s most high-profile case, Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan was called for chucking thrice in Australia between 1995 and 1999, leading to a furore.
The Muralitharan crisis also gave the law against throwing an extra dimension. Studies showed that he had a natural flex in his elbow and couldn’t straighten his bowling arm at the point of delivery. Ordinarily, Muralitharan would have been a “chucker", but in the light of these investigations, he was handicapped. Should he then have been barred from playing?
When Muralitharan was cleared, it was argued that a special case had been made for a star player. But further research showed that almost every bowler—pace or slow—had a flex. The ICC set up a committee to look into this and, in 2003, came up with a modification to the law, allowing bowlers a maximum of 15 degrees flex.
While this was expected to make the issue simpler for bowlers and umpires, it actually made it more complex. How can a bowler or umpire know the difference between a 15-degree and an 18-degree flex while playing?
3) Is coaching or excessive experimentation the problem?
In cricket history, barely a couple of off-spinners had been called for chucking till about 20 years back. It is instructive that apart from Ajmal, most bowlers under scrutiny in recent years have been off-spinners: Muralitharan, Shoaib Malik, Singh, Botha, Samuels, Shane Shillingford, Sachithra Senanayake and Kane Williamson.
This is attributed to the arrival and success of the doosra, a delivery which spins the other way from regular off-spin, but also frequently results in the bowler delivering with a bent arm. In the grim battle between bat and ball, off-spinners found this a potent weapon.
The 15-degree flex that the law now permits gave them leeway to push the envelope as it were. Bowlers like Saqlain Mushtaq, Muralitharan and Singh went on to become powerful role models, spawning a whole generation of off-spinners who now revel in the doosra while struggling to bowl conventional off-spin.
I see this as a technical-cum-cultural problem that poses the biggest challenge for the game’s coaches and administrators. Even as this is being written, thousands of young children are trying to master the doosra, unaware that this could lead to problems in future.
4) How can this problem be addressed?
Frankly, chucking has become a multi-headed monster that needs to be tackled strongly on several fronts. It needs to be looked at afresh in the light of recent cases.
A committee comprising bowlers with excellent technical and coaching credentials, like Bishen Singh Bedi, Dennis Lillee, Graeme Swann, etc., could work in tandem with biomechanic experts to see if the 15-degree flex rule is useful or is dragging the game down.
At the cultural level, the ICC, through the national cricket boards, must send out a diktat to coaches in academies right down to the junior level to make “clean" actions the desired objective, with punishments in case of breach.
Finally, field umpires must be given a boost to report cases aggressively rather than worry about being overruled by technology. As in the case of other decisions, it’s clear that when umpires are worried about being shown up, the number of mistakes increase.
Ayaz Memon is a senior columnist who writes on sports and other matters.
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